


Lady in Waiting

by Piquelabaleine



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-03-24 05:03:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13803984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piquelabaleine/pseuds/Piquelabaleine
Summary: Post-hunt, she waits for him at the bar.Takes place prior to season 1. Later chapters reference seasons 1-4.





	1. Chapter 1

She waits for him at the bar. She has anticipated his arrival since early afternoon; could sense his focus shifting as he cleaned the gore from his gear and his body, catalogued the damages and addressed the bloody bits. The physical rituals quiet his mind when the hunt is over, allowing him to subdue the warrior and reclaim some humanity. She can almost feel the water slipping past his shoulders down into the shower drain, carrying his weariness away and revealing tensions that still seek release.

It never takes long for his thoughts to turn to the solace that alcohol and flash company can offer. She can predict it almost to the minute.

She has waited countless times before in places that all feel the same; has built her own ritual out of lurking at the edges of long counters with an untouched drink at her elbow while she calculates her approach. It's a delicious and dangerous game to slip past his perimeter without tripping hair-trigger alarms. Despite his easy, open grin he is never unguarded, and as much as she craves his attention she doesn't dare attract it. She is his kind of prey as much as he is hers, although she uses him more gently than he would her. She wouldn't trust him to ask questions before killing her. Ganking, he calls it. He is a consummate ganker.

Her mind is easy while he hunts; what happens there is not in her jurisdiction. The urge to lay hands upon him begins the moment he sets down his weapon, and her need sharpens the longer he remains out of reach. His energy tugs incessantly at the edges of her consciousness, and she has only to lose her focus on _here_ to find herself close enough to touch him regardless of where he is. But she prefers the crowd cover, so she winds her anticipation tighter and waits.

By the time his '67 Impala growls up to the local dive she is strung out from hours of resistance. The air around her is charged like an electrical storm. The crowd feeds off her tension; liquids agitate against glasses, laughter becomes increasingly raucous, sidelong glances meet and tangle as flirting grows intense. The mean drunks and the jealous types stand on edge, eyes narrowed and moods spiraling.

The slam of his car door out in the lot sends light and sound ricocheting like lightning bolts around the room. She breathes a benediction as his broad shoulders fill the door frame, the energy around her reaching a crescendo as his eyes scan the room. He saunters to the bar, leans in next to her to order a beer. The entire place mellows as she reels the wild energy back in to focus wholly on him.  

He never realizes that shift is external; just thinks that her relief washing over him is his own feeling of homecoming. He has developed quite a fondness for bars.  
  
The hunt went well today. He is ebullient and on the prowl, still seeking release after an easy fight. The evening is amusing but not overly challenging; the beers keep coming and women practically fall into his lap without much effort on his part or hers. She nudges the prettiest ones closer to him and shifts anyone spoiling for a fight nearer the door. There are times when he needs to keep hitting something and she reverses the polarity, but tonight he's craving carnal pleasure.

She relishes the joy he finds in casual intimacies, takes advantage of the distractions to steal past his borders and ease the worst of his injuries. He's torn his rotator cuff again. She immerses herself, his pain zinging through her veins as she smooths torn muscles and tamps down jangled nerve endings. He slings an arm around the girl by his side and credits the booze for his sudden mobility.  

She treads lightly on nights like this. It's always a temptation to be bold and let his eye catch hers as he surveys the room. To allow her breath to tickle his ear as he leans against the bar where she has faded into invisibility. To brush against his arm as he turns to walk away. She's tempted to claim him in bolder ways; to feel his mouth moving over her skin, his body delving into hers and then shuddering into tranquility. As he penetrates her she could sink into the very core of him.

But he is still edgy, still half-looking for something to kill. She weighs her desire against potential discovery, then turns her mind instead to following the flow of blood in his veins to the cracked and torn pieces that need mending. She's already been privy to his most intimate parts, anyway. She doesn't require a tribute.

He saunters off with a curvy blonde who laughs like a hyena and seems to have lost half of her skirt. She lets him go, then turns to her final ritual of the night. As he sinks down onto a bed somewhere with his door prize, she takes one more moment to savor the vestiges of him still moving through her like fire, then lets the energy run down into the floor and seep away. She leaves as she arrived, unnoticed.

It amuses Eir that there are always a few vulnerables who manage to draw the discarded energy up into themselves. She is an accidental goddess of bar brawls and hangovers, and Dean Winchester is their unwitting inspiration.


	2. Call and Response

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She first meets Dean Winchester facedown in a ditch. An unpleasant ditch, containing slimy rainwater and a tangled heap of slashed skin and broken bones belonging to one dead creature of indeterminate species, and one nearly dead human.

Eir first encounters Dean Winchester facedown in a ditch. The setting is not unusual for either of them. She is accustomed to finding wounded warriors in such places, in the immediate aftermath of battle or in later days of drunkenness and despondency. He is new to hunting alone, and is already more acclimated to regaining consciousness in abandoned places than he cares to admit. Certainly more than he would admit to the brother who cut him loose months ago, or to the father who has absconded with the entire safety net.

What is unusual is the attraction. She is conscious of soldiers all over the world as they fall, but she is usually pulled by large concentrations. His individual need rises like a flare, yanks her from a lazy afternoon in a veterans' ward and deposits her a hundred miles away in a roadside ditch. As ditches go it's on the unpleasant end of the spectrum, containing slimy rainwater and a tangled heap of slashed skin and broken bones belonging to one dead creature of indeterminate species, and one nearly dead human.

Venom burns in his veins, corroding them further with each sluggish beat of his heart. He doesn't have time enough for her to be gentle. Eir plunges her hands right into him, sifting tainted blood from clean, hissing softly as the poison she draws out of him drags barbs through her own system, until she isolates and expels it.

The speed with which she knits bones and muscle and organs back together is brutal, but necessary to prevent his body shutting down. Urgent, forced healing is excruciating; she knows her touch causes as much pain as it ultimately relieves. Eir doesn't mind the agony bolting through her own body like lightning, but she usually tries to be delicate and respectful of mortal perception. He's fortunate to remain unconscious.

When his blood runs clean and his breathing is easy, she cradles his head in her lap, lingering over his upturned face. His tall, solid frame reminds her of her earliest charges, beautiful Norse warriors with their broad shoulders and strong hands; the way their muscled bodies moved in quiet moments of gratitude. His small, even features are more evocative of the Others who mingled with her people as they moved west. 

In sleep they have all looked the same: young and vulnerable. This boy has a sweet, almost delicate face that belies the combat experience she reads in his body and the old hurts roiling just under his surface. He's chronologically young, but already world-weary. And yet, at his core is something irrepressible. Something bright and golden. It rises like helium and feels like sunlight on a late summer afternoon. She indulges the whimsical image of that warm golden energy seeping through his skin to burnish his hair and eyelashes, scattering gold flecks across his skin and in his jade-green irises.

She is suddenly aware that those green and gold eyes are fixed on hers. She's been so fascinated by his interior that she missed the signs of rising consciousness. She’s still entangled in his energy, her fingertips searing pink patterns on his chest as they close the last of his wounds. And she has forgotten to cloak her physical presence; he watches her register his attention.

His mouth curves up at the edges for a millisecond; then one large hand grips both of her wrists and all traces of sweetness and vulnerability flee his face. “What the hell --” Eir hears just before a white-hot bolt of panic repels his grasp and zaps her to safety far away.


	3. Surfacing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean is dreaming. Or dead. Either way there's a girl, so he's okay.

Dean is dreaming. Or dead. It's entirely possible that fanged asshole punched his ticket and the Afterlife involves lying in some chick's lap while she gazes tenderly into his eyes and … draws on him with a soldering iron? He arrests her tiny wrists with one hand, noting that she's fairly solid, for a dream.

“What the hell's going on?” he spits out, but she is gone. He’s on his feet quickly, scanning the area and confirming that he is the only living creature in this nasty swamp pit. He’s got a reverberating, lurchy feeling like he’s fighting a hangover. Must’ve been hit with some venom containing grade-A hallucinogens. He vividly remembers the feeling of being torn open, and an arc of thick dark drops flying through the air as his vision whited out, but he seems fine now. The pattern of burnt skin across his chest has faded along with the girl. Lingering effects of his acid trip, maybe.

For weeks afterwards he dreams of silky black hair falling like a curtain around him, and intense light grey eyes fixed on his. The woman studies his face while his chest burns and something flutters deep within him like a trapped butterfly.


	4. Advance and Retreat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean Winchester is a dangerous patient. In the interest of self-preservation, she studies him carefully.

Dean Winchester's energy summons her again a few months later. Again Eir finds herself kneeling over him in the wake of a battle he had no business fighting alone. Again she plunges her hands deep into him, manipulating his heart and lungs while she seals him closed to keep what's left of his blood supply on the inside.

This time she has a better idea of what he is: hunter, more than warrior. Hunters are irrelevant to her purpose; she tends to those whose spirits still cling to their broken bodies in the wake of battle, the ones her sisters choose not to reap. Picking through my leftovers, Freya teased her once, when she was in a not-so-nice mood. My sister, the dumpster-diving doctor.

Eir wonders why she can hear this man at all. Perhaps because he considers himself to be at war with his prey. He's on a noble quest, a minor savior of the human race. Eir's inclined to think he's more of a bully's bully, but she can't really choose sides. She goes where she is called.

He has killed more creatures since their last encounter; she can feel his sharpened senses and harder edges, and a grim loneliness tucked just below his surface. That same buoyant sunlight shines at his center, though; she resists the urge to sink into its warmth, tries to focus only on her mending.

She takes care to cloak her physical presence as she works. Still, he comes awake with a yell, knife slicing through her arms and chest before she can disentangle her energy from his. Her shocked glare meets his for a long moment before instinct kicks in and she zaps herself to safety, leaving him to threaten empty space.

Eir chokes on air; she can hear the wet sound as blood rushes in and prevents the oxygen from filling her lungs. The sharp burning overwhelms her for several minutes before she's able to separate body from purpose and begin healing herself. She recognizes the pain, but it is a sensation distinct from what she pulls from others' bodies.

She's relieved to find she can repair her own body. Bombs, bullets and blades never touched her before. Why was he able? The entanglement of their energies, perhaps. That's what she gets for mingling.

Dean's wounds nag at Eir for hours afterwards. She hadn't quite tipped the balance to where his body could heal itself before she fled, and her mind circles the unfinished task like a moth determined to self-immolate. Every idle moment finds her back at his side, hoping he'll be unconscious or delirious so she can poke at him without retaliation, but he remains stubbornly on guard. Had she been endowed with a little more leeway on the moral compass, or maybe just a little more gumption, she would exert pressure in just the right places and knock him out so she can fix him without interruption. She's tempted. But her purpose has always been to heal warriors who ask and accept, not to force treatment on the recalcitrant. Near death, he has sought her help twice, then rejected it after it was already given. She wishes his conscious and unconscious selves would reach a consensus.

She's ready when his injuries finally overwhelm him and he passes out in a dingy motel room. Eir works warily, refusing to be drawn into the warmth at his core. She retreats as his consciousness rises; leaving him to handle the lesser healing on his own. It's not her finest work.

Eir stands outside his motel room door and contemplates cowardice. She is shy, but she has always thought herself as brave as her soldiers. She has never hesitated to walk into the height of battle for them. Of course, she has never flirted with mortality before. She'd rather not.

One doesn't see many new things after the first thousand years, but this hyper-alert hunter filled with sunlight and crushing loneliness is a tantalizing, terrifying, completely new thing. She's not sure she can refuse Dean Winchester when he calls again. She has never been bold or forthright like her sisters, nor has she ever tried to resist the broken and dying men who call to her. She'll be drawn in every time he gets damaged, and he will attack the moment he senses her presence. He might actually kill her.

In the interest of self-preservation, Eir spends some time surveilling Dean. There are gaping holes in his life. His mother is a distant, idealized memory: a glimpse of golden hair and a sweet smile; tickling fingers across his belly and a soft body folding him in as she breathes his name across the top of his head; contented, absent-minded singing and the sweet smell of hot apple pie wafting through the air. Walking among another's thoughts is not Eir's forte, but the images are strong and Dean visits them often. He uses them like a mantra. He thinks they bring him comfort, but she can see the rising tides of loneliness and wanting that threaten to wash him away.

He loves his father. Eir can hear it in his voice when John calls, nearly every day. But he doesn't get much comfort from the man. John's voice brings reassurance and steadiness, but when he hangs up Dean becomes restless. He always has to do something in the aftermath; he cleans and loads his weapons, drives through the night in search of something new to hunt and kill. Finds a bar to procure alcohol, women, cash from an unfriendly game of billiards. John's voice is a call to action, goading his son into a journey with only a vaguely promised destination.

Eir can't quite fathom Dean's sharpest ache, a constant companion whose absence he feels a dozen times a day. Someone has stolen his softer parts, caused him to hide in superficialities. Someone he has lost on purpose; there's a hint of martyrdom in his loneliness. A child, perhaps; sent way for safety.

Dean has no home. No mate. He has plenty of casual company; he's charismatic and pretty enough to reel one in on every line he casts at a woman, but no constant relationship to anchor him. Eir has hopes for one beautiful, sharp-witted girl in a college town who recognizes Dean's worth despite the swagger and cheap clothing, but he tells her too many truths too quickly. The tenuous ties between them break. He moves on.

Dean moves through a revolving landscape of small towns and motels and diners. He has a network of acquaintances but no close friends. He has a car full of weapons and a head full of knowledge that keeps him isolated. He has an old car with a million miles on it that is arguably his closest companion. He can't quite camouflage his immense loneliness behind sex, booze, burgers and pie.

Her wayward warrior is smart and fearless, but impulsive. He gets into a lot of mischief, attracts a lot of bad luck. He's living by the seat of his pants, and they are rapidly becoming threadbare. She wonders how many times she can steal him from under Death's nose. And how long it will take her sister to steal him from under hers. She's surprised by a wave of strong feeling at the idea. _Mine,_ whispers the current swirling beneath thought. _He called me._


	5. Of the Female Persuasion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean Winchester thinks women are magical. It suits her purpose.

In the aftermath of hunts that do not go well, that leave him battered and exhausted, Eir can reach right into him and set about her work without much subtlety. He downs whiskey and she works efficiently beneath the alcoholic haze. If his injuries are severe and he drinks enough, she risks tending to him huddled in the back seat of his car or sprawled on the bed in his motel room. She loves the occasions when he passes out drunk and she can immerse herself in his beautiful energy, pretending for a while that he has welcomed her in. More often he becomes more alert as he heals and she has to battle her skittishness long enough to be sure he is well before she flees.

It's easier when he self-medicates in the bars, perception getting hazy and soft-edged after the first four or five rounds. The challenge is to gage how much she can repair before his eyes suddenly clear and he searches his surroundings for what is not quite right. Sometimes she is so lost in the labyrinth that she doesn't feel the shift coming. There's an instant of mutual panic as his head comes sharply up and she goes completely still within him. For a long, suspended moment his awareness eddies around her – then his latest companion touches his hand and murmurs in his ear, and Eir eases away.

Eir counts on the women to help her patch up the trickier damage. Dean only suspects that alcohol washes away the need for stitches and surgery, but he is dead certain that orgasm is a cure-all. It goes beyond losing oneself in physical pleasure to forget for a few hours; Eir can carry away the worst of his trauma if she has the right ingredients on hand. She can't fix grief and heartache, but some post-traumatic stress is chemically based and she can shift that, at least. The brassy women who scratch his itch are fine for the easy stuff, but for injuries beyond the physical she requires a more powerful tool. She scours the bar for softer, more sympathetic types, the ones who need to make some kind of emotional connection before hopping into bed. If she can procure just the right amount of flirtation and sympathy without neediness, he'll open...well, not like a book. He never shares much, but he might tell them a line or two that approaches truth and provides the opening Eir needs to smooth away some of the wretchedness he's cradling inside. The key is his humility; the most effective tool is the woman he doesn't believe he deserves.

Eir puzzles over the paradox. He knows he's charismatic and pleasing to look at, and he certainly knows all the right ways to touch a woman, but the self-image Dean carries in his head is uglier and grimier than anyone else can see. Despite his impressive scorecard he's still surprised and grateful when someone accepts his touch.

Dean Winchester worships women. Truly worships their bodies; fills his vision with their beauty, breathes them in, blesses every inch of them with his touch, loses himself in their depths. He leaves each one behind almost as easily as he lures her in, but for the few hours in between he is unreservedly hers. Watching him, Eir feels the aching loss of prayers and offerings that petered out centuries ago. She remembers what it felt like to be so revered. The desire to take a tribute is intense; she suspects it will be her undoing.


	6. Valkyrie, Vetala and Valuable Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the first time, she sees Dean in action.

Eir watches the constellation of bruises across Dean's face change from purple to green to yellow. She's speed-healing out of annoyance. His conquest of the day doesn't even notice that his face is flickering like a discotheque. She's hanging on his right bicep, darting quick glances into his eyes, giggling and burying her face in his shoulder. Eir's not sure if the girl is an underage virgin or an idiot, but either way she's disgusted by Dean's choice. She's rolling her eyes for the hundredth time when the room seems to get a little brighter and warm up several degrees. She recognizes her sister's influence even before everyone in the bar starts eyeing each other with lustful intent. The goddess of good times is here. Eir wonders how many of the women here will go home tonight with a new life nestled within.

"Eirie! Fishing for alcoholics?" Freya murmurs gleefully in her ear. Her sister collects the spirits of warriors who die on the battlefields, winnowing out the brave and beautiful for her own purposes. She heals and blesses the heroes who catch her eye. She has never thought much of Eir's interest in the damaged and lost souls who continue to stagger through life when the wars are done.

Eir has managed to avoid her almighty sister for a few restful decades. She doesn't dislike her, but she doesn't like to feel inconsequential. In her sister's company she is diluted, ineffectual. She doesn't mind that Freya draws energy and people to her like a magnet – goodness knows, Eir doesn't want the attention – but she feels her competence and quiet power drown in her sister's wake.

Freya hones in on Dean. "Ooh, pretty." She eyes Eir speculatively. "Stalking a crush? Are we regressing? Shall we call him names and pull his hair so he doesn't realize we like him?"

Eir startles. "What? No, that's not -"

Her sister makes a rude noise. "Your fingerprints are all over him. You're hovering even though he no longer has need of you, lurking in a corner instead of claiming a tribute. You're not the creepy stalker type, so this pretty boy must be an object of timid affection. I could do a taste-test if you'd like; see if the product lives up to the packaging." Freya frowns at the young woman who is now licking the side of Dean's neck. "Of course, he may be a bit...muddy. Not choosy, is he?"

Actually, Dean is usually more discerning than this. He doesn't mind the occasional moron, but he tends to steer clear of what he calls jailbait. Eir sits up a little straighter, wondering what she's misread about the situation. "Something's about to happen," she realizes.

Freya snorts. "Indeed; that infant is about to stick her tongue right down your boy's throat and rub her nasty mortal germs on every inch of him. There will be nothing aesthetically pleasing about the spectacle. As a voyeur, you have terrible taste."

"Just watch a minute." Eir scans Dean's mood. She had thought he was unusually restless; now she realizes he is alert and focused, but not aroused. Despite the outward signs, he's not enjoying the bimbo's ministrations. He's hunting. And the girl isn't human.

Not-a-girl squirms closer to Dean, licks his earlobe and whispers something into his ear. He grins and tosses a handful of bills onto the table, then lets her pull him out of the bar through a side door.

Eir grabs hops off the bar stool and tugs Freya by the arm to the same exit. "Come on! I don't usually get to see this part. Be careful, okay? Don't let him see you." Her sister rolls her eyes and Eir makes a face. "This isn't about me being a shy idiot. Please, for me? Don't do your shiny goddess thing, or your casual mortal thing, either. You can stand to be invisible for five minutes."

By the time they slip into the alley Dean is in the midst of a brawl with the creature, who is no longer a giggly teenager but a hissing angry thing with superior strength and a mouthful of sharp teeth. She throws him against a wall, leaps across the alley after him and stomps on his arm. A knife clatters to the ground and he lies still, briefly stunned. The not-girl crouches over him and yanks his head back by the hair, making the tendons in his neck stand out.

Eir thinks about the near-catatonic state she found Dean in just a few hours ago, of the deep puncture wounds she healed, laced with a venom that made him heavy-limbed and lethargic. This can't be the same creature he fought this morning; surely they would have recognized each other and skipped the farcical flirtation scene in favor of violence. Still, she guesses this girl's teeth will inflict similar damage. She's not looking forward to tasting that poison twice in one day.

Dean's hands scrabble along the pavement. He recovers his weapon and slashes up from an awkward angle; the force isn't enough to do serious harm, but the bimbo monster falls back with a snarl. It's only a few inches, but Dean takes the opening, surging up from the ground and stabbing right through her gut. The creature crumples in on herself. He regains his feet, then raises his weapon again, and the bimbo's head comes to a rest several feet away.

"Fucking Vetala," he mutters. "Guess they come in pairs." He rubs the back of his neck, eyes the door to the bar longingly, then turns on his heel and walks out of the alley to the street.

Eir evaluates him as he goes. She doesn't sense any breaks or breaches, just a new complement of bruises. Nothing worth chasing him down the alley for. She shivers, replaying the fight in her mind. She's not sure if she's aroused or terrified.

"He's a fierce one," Freyja remarks. "And sparkly inside, like a lighthouse. I can see the attraction."

She arches an eyebrow. "Eirie? You going to mope, or go put some more fingerprints on that fine specimen?"

Eir's hand creeps up to cover the place where Dean's knife cut deep into her chest several months ago. The skin is unmarked, but sometimes she flashes back to that blade biting through her pectoral muscle and lung, remembers the searing lack of oxygen and drooping shoulder. What she experiences when healing someone is abstract and ephemeral, but when her own body was breached the pain was deep and sharp, somehow taking over every nerve ending and coherent thought, continuing to amplify until she was sure she would never feel or think anything except agony. She feels her gorge rising at the memory.

"Mope," she says firmly.

Freya considers her for a moment. "I'll leave you to your obsession for now, but this is not healthy, baby sister. Somehow this mortal has you behaving like a battered wife." She leans down from her greater height to look Eir in the eye. "If he dies in battle, I _will_ take him, if only to save you from yourself."


	7. The Missing Piece

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With his brother by his side, Dean is complete.

Eir is patching people up in Abu Ghraib. Modern technology doesn't often leave much for her to work with in the wake of a battle, but this one is reminiscent of the old days and she is fully engaged – until Dean Winchester's need flares up and her attention wavers. She can't justify leaving so many wounded soldiers for the sake of one; she hyperfocuses on the soldiers under her hands until she has salvaged what she can from the mess. Finally she allows herself to be drawn from blinding hot desert to dark, muddy field.

She's too late, though. By the time she arrives, Dean has unwittingly traded his health for another's. He is whole, but carries guilt and regret over the soul that was sacrificed in his place. It was not his choice, but he is responsible nonetheless.

His energy has changed. Eir doesn't think it has to do with a few more drops of guilt added to the vast store he has already been carrying. It takes her a moment to realize that the new development is a sense of stability. He is grounded, tethered to the boy who stands tall and quiet by his side.

"Sammy," Dean says, and Eir can feel something like a deadbolt sliding into place. She recognizes that this is Dean's mysterious missing piece, the happiness sacrificed and now restored.

A mop of dark hair doesn't quite cover the newcomer's direct blue-hazel gaze. His eyes have a Scandinavian tilt; combined with an upturned nose, wide mouth and strong jaw he could rival the beauty of any of her Norse warriors. He's deceptively lanky given his strength and musculature, and older than she expected, given the paternal attitude she has gleaned from Dean in the past. Not offspring, then; more likely a younger sibling for whom he bears responsibility.

Dean in Sammy's presence is fascinating. Eir can't keep herself from remaining in their company for a few days. Thank goodness Freya is busy elsewhere and doesn't know what her sister is up to. Goddesses, even the least of them, do not lurk.

In the course of a day Dean takes every opportunity to say his brother's name, and Eir feels the flash of secretive gratitude that accompanies each repetition. Sammy – Sam, he insists – doesn't know these are tiny prayers of thanks; he's irritated by the repeated use of his childhood nickname. He's not interested in regressing. She can feel Dean's insecurity whenever his eyes rest on the boy's coltish frame; long absence has changed the natural order. The child is no longer a dependent; their relationship has shifted into something more equal and it makes Dean uneasy.

Sammy-Sam radiates sincerity and empathy, but Eir senses that a keen, analytical mind is usually dominant over his emotions. Not that he isn't awash with feelings; he must feel everything keenly, because this boy has dammed up an ocean of grief and despair threatens to breach its containment. But his eyes are constantly assessing his surroundings and there's a certain coolness about him that she associates with strategy and opportunism. He'll be a decisive warrior, circling until he spots an advantage, then mercilessly making the kill.

Eir hopes Dean will need less patching up now that his brother fights at his side. It's a thin hope that is soon worn through, because Sammy-Sam believes he is an adult, but Dean does not. Sam often emerges from a hunt unscathed, while his protective brother proves to be as breakable as ever. He is, however, less easily repairable than before. Eir is frustrated by their vigilance over each other; Sam's brilliant mind flags any anomalies and Dean is on hyper-alert, and sometimes she just can't get close enough to fix either of them.

Sometimes, though, they've been too much in each other's pockets and annoyances split them apart. For a few hours Dean gets lost in a bar while Sam gets lost in a book, and she gets lost in Sam. She always follows Dean first, cloaked in the artificial gaiety of the bar scene, but when one's needs are fulfilled her curiosity draws her back to the other. He's every bit as distracting as his brother, but the energy is different. She meanders without thought, gradually notices that her consciousness is immersed in what feels like the light of a full moon. At his center is a lake, tranquil, and reflective, but she can sense something dark lurking in the depths. Something about to surface.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! These seven chapters were written as an exercise to regain language skills after an illness stole my vocabulary and reading comprehension. I'm hoping to write more, but it may be slow going.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This came out of a contemplation about how the Winchesters are miraculously restored to health at the beginning of each episode (Jared Padalecki's real-life injuries aside). Posting this as a stand-alone piece, still debating whether to add the other chapters I've written. 
> 
> \- Pique


End file.
